March 2011 Archive

EXCLUSIVE: Timur Bekmambetov has won a spec auction for Maggie, a script that sparked a spirited auction today, with six bidders. Bekmambetov will produce a film that has a script by John Scott 3, and vfx wiz Henry Hobson set to direct. Why did so many bidders spark to the script? Aside from offering some inventive twists on the popular zombie genre, Maggie is a blueprint for a genre movie that can be made for between $4 million and $8 million. That budget range has… Read

Chuck Lorre took to his favorite outlet, the vanity cards running at the end of his CBS comedies, to reflect on the impact the ongoing war with Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen has had on him. The card aired at the end of tonight’s original episode of The Big Bang Theory and was spotted by my colleague, TVLine‘s Michael Ausiello. It was another Lorre vanity card, the now infamous “If Charlie Sheen outlives me, I’m gonna be really pissed” one at the end of the final… Read

“I’m thrilled,” a happy Matt Weiner said in a phone interview shortly after his new three-year $30 million deal for Mad Menwas announced. He is going back to work tomorrow, the writers room will get up-and-running in 4-5 weeks, and production on the much-delayed Season 5 of the Emmy-winning AMC drama will start in July, the same month the fifth season was originally slated to premiere.
But the deal almost didn’t happen. “I walked away from it 4-5 times in the last few… Read

It’s like Deal or No Deal with envelopes instead of briefcases: CBS has ordered game show pilotSecret Fortune, which will be executive produced by American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance guru Nigel Lythgoe.
Based on a Wild River Prods. format, Secret Fortune will have contestants choosing from 24 sealed envelopes, each of them containing a check for amounts that varies widely from a buck to a fortune. Eventually, 23 of the envelopes will be destroyed, with the… Read

Tim Burton’s cast forDark Shadowsgets better and better. Kick-Ass star Chloe Moretz is now in talks to join the Warner Bros drama based on the 60s TV soap. Moretz will play Carolyn. She’s the daughter of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), the reclusive matriarch of the Collins clan and owner of the Collinwood mansion where the supernatural saga unfolds. Moretz just wrapped the Martin Scorsese-directed Hugo Cabret and she is currently starring in the Derek… Read

EXCLUSIVE: McG’s Wonderland Sound and Vision has launched a new comic and graphic novel imprint to create transmedia properties out of original ideas. The first title will be Haunted City, based on an idea by screenwriter Chap Taylor. Taylor and Wonderland’s Peter Johnson will write the comic, will be published by Wonderland in association with Aspen Comics. It will simultaneously be developed into a feature script that McG hopes to direct, as well as a TV pilot that… Read

Former cop and Gangster Squad scribe Will Beall will script the Logan’s Run remake that director Nicolas Winding Refn will do with Ryan Gosling. … Vulture reports that Diego Gonzalez Boneta has bagged the male lead in Rock of Ages, the Adam Shankman-directed musical based on the Broadway show. Actually, he’s not set yet, because New Line brass has to approve him. But he’s Shankman’s choice to star alongside Julianne Hough and a supporting cast that will include Tom… Read

RELATED: Matt Weiner: “These Are The Last Three Seasons Of ‘Mad Men'”
After some last minute saber-rattling over product placement, episode duration, possible cast cuts and the show’s return date, Mad Mencreator Matt Weiner has come to an agreement with AMC and Lionsgate TV for a new three-year mega deal said to be in the $25M-$30M range. With Weiner locked in, AMC has picked up the show for two more seasons, Season 5 and Season 6, with a seventh season almost a given… Read

EXCLUSIVE: Drew Pearce has been chosen by Marvel Studios to write Iron Man 3. Robert Downey Jr. will reprise his signature Tony Stark role, and Marvel recently locked Downey’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang helmer Shane Black to direct. Pearce got the job after writing the script for Runaways, a Marvel project based on the cult comic by Lost writer Brian K. Vaughan about children of super villains who try to use their evil powers for heroic purposes. Pearce is the British writer who… Read

EXCLUSIVE: In what shapes up as his first feature project after leaving The Office,Steve Carell will star in Seeking A Friend For The End of The World. The film marks the directorial debut of its screenwriter, Lorene Scafaria. Keira Knightley is in negotiations for the female lead. Mandate Pictures and Indian Paintbrush will co-finance and production begins in May. The film takes place at a time when mankind is forced to absorb the fact that an incoming asteroid will end… Read

NEW YORK (March 31, 2011) – Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they will release Gus Van Sant's new film, RESTLESS, in North America, with Sony Pictures Releasing International distributing the film in the rest of the world. Jason Lew penned the film's script that stars Henry Hopper, Mia Wasikowska, Ryo Kase, Schuyler Fisk and Luisa Strus. RESTLESS is produced by Bryce Dallas Howard, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard under the Imagine Entertainment banner and Columbia… Read